First review, let me tell you what it's about. Here is where I review and talk about Japanese manga that nobody reads or talks about, simply because most of them are not scanlated. It is the hidden treasure tacked away from dirty otaku and scanlator hands, they contain none of them wide-eyed lolita girls, the pubescent screaming teenage hero, the typical manga foundations, in other words, it's almost "anti-manga", something most non-Japanese people probably wouldn't touch.
This is where we dive into ミナミの帝王 (Minami no Teiou), or King of Minami. A manga that really doesn't care about what it presents, it doesn't care about the characters it shows, the world it lives in, it is a filthy, distinct, marvelous, but stark and brutal portrayal of the evils of money and politics. This manga has everything, prostitution, money-laundering, illegal money-bidding, human organs trafficking, drug-peddling, sex, rape and just general depravity that you can find in any under-dwelling slums of Tokyo.
But the author of the manga do put us in familiar territory at first, the main character Manda will be the closet thing in this manga to a "stereotypical" anime character, he is seen with a nonchalant grin on his face, spiked hair, and sort of carries an attitude of an airhead. He seemingly has no daily plans, a very spontaneous man who follows his lust on a brief whim. That is....of course....until someone takes his money from him and attempts to shove a back-ended middle-finger up his filthy rich-ass, because apparently Manda is so pimpin' that even his feces are like gold bricks. Anyways, this is where the heart of the manga starts to bleed, Manda transforms from a whimsical naive innocent character into a calculating, deceiving, plotting wretch that the rotting corpse of Queen Elizabeth would be proud of.
He is simliar to Kaiji in some ways, in fact I'm sure the author of Kaiji instilled some of Manda's characteristics into our lovable gambling addict. Of course the big difference being that Kaiji is a man with the senses of a good Samaritan while Manda will resort to any criminal activity with his affiliated Yakuza to....get his business done. Because if Manda was in Kaiji's world, he would be the loan-shark that lending Kaiji the money.
The typical story in a King of Minami manga is anything but typical, but for the most part it always has Manda getting his money stolen, or losing his money to a client, and the client could range from a corrupt politician, a drug addict, a thug, to your everyday lonely businessman. And Manda of course, gets backed into a corner and has to come up with some devious plans to get his money back.
In volume #11, we actually see Manda dealing with a corrupt police officer Tateishi for the first time, and this is maybe the first time I've ever read about the evils of rotten law enforcement officers in a manga, and let me tell you, this guy is a bastard. The opening scene we see the cop sexually abusing some hooker, and then when the hooker confronts the cop about paying up, he flashes his badge and threatens to shut down the entire whorehouse, which makes me wonder if it's really that easy in Japan. He then struts his way through the streets of Osaka like a pimp on payday.
Tateishi arrives at the station, and then finds out that his boss is giving the entire police department an assignment to track down and arrest Manda for counterfeit money operations (or whatever crime they made up), and then he starts to badmouth his boss and the entire police department for being lazy bums and how he's the only one doing any detective work such as finding out about illegal whorehouses (god I just love this guy already), and then he decides to take on the job himself to bust down our loving greedy hero Manda, but of course it isn't before we see a panel where his eyes started flashing dollar signs, we all know where this is going.
In some issues, it will take a while for Manda to show up, the author will try to develop the "villains" first, and show us the deep shit they're in before our hero comes in to either rescues them from the gates of hell, or let them burn in debt inferno.
This time, a conniving foxy lady shows up at Manda's door and asks for 1 million dollars in cash to borrow. Manda of course lends her the money willingly even though he knows that she's plotting something. Here is where the character of Manda gets interesting, he would lend just about anyone money, but he is an adapt expert in these dealings. He can immediately see through them and see if they're trying to screw him or not, he knows she's bullshitting, but plays along, and gives her the money, and then the bomb is dropped:
She escapes. She disappears completely without a trace. Manda of course is furious, and says "to find the bitch even if we have to go to the depths of hell", well, it gets even worse. She's actually working for the corrupt Tateishi to lure Manda out and make him commit something illegal. This is another thing that Manda didn't expect, corrupt cops, so now he has hands full. He has to find the girl no matter what before the cops get to him.
Up until this issue, Manda had experienced some problems with money, whether being stolen from him or having to deal with corrupt businessman. However, there were also many stories where we see Manda being the philanthropist. There were stories where he helped a lowly Yakuza build his own business, aided a woman with her restaurant, helped people who were in debt. This time, we see him in an extreme situation where he's on the tail-end of being screwed. And in the future there will be many more stories to come that follows this pattern.
Manda, compared to Kaiji, probably isn't as smart. However, Manda knows the money business like it's the back of his hand, also, he has laywer smarts, he seems to remember every law there is in the book so he can get through loopholes as to what the cops will ignore and what they won't. He's definitely studied his material so that he can get himself out of these dire situations. Kaiji, on the other hand, is a bumbling idiot until his inches away from his own demise, that's when he transforms into a gambling genius of sorts. These are definitely two great characters that have the strength to carry a manga all by themselves.
The cop Tateishi finally arrests Manda, and then we get some great dialogue out of the two where Manda drops knowledge on the cop about the laws that he doesn't even know. Manda of course gave his Yakuza henchmen orders to find that girl in 48 hours no matter what. And this is where the game comes in between Tateishi and Manda, and it is packed with great scenes.
The more I read this manga, the more I'm intrigued about this character, and it's an absolute treat reading him. We see him whistling and taking walks in a carefree manner in the streets of Osaka, but then transforms before our eyes into a money-grabbing demon, which is what he is famous for around the town. It's always exciting to look forward to the next issue, where I just can't wait to see what kind of dealings he will have in his hands.
As for volume #11 itself, I give this a grade of B+.
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